Great Beauty director Paolo Sorrentino thanked a bunch of luminaries after winning an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Sunday night. Among those names? Federico Fellini, the Talking Heads, Martin Scorsese and …. Diego Maradona. (Yes, the Italian did indeed thank Maradona as the clip captured by my Internet amigo Slade would attest.)

Sorrentino, an Italian Rick Reilly lookalike, is from Naples and Maradona starred for the Napoli club during its heyday in the 1980s. Viola! Connection!

Anyways, 1980s Maradona highlights never disappoint, if only for the short-shorts and hair combo coupled with the enormous crowds at the Stadio San Paolo which came to watch him play.

Another question: how many Hollywood folks have even the slightest clue who Maradona is? Granted on the the flip side you could ask how many soccer fans (and bloggers, cough cough) had heard of Sorrentino and or The Great Beauty prior to tonight?